Action Research Template

This week has been a little hectic trying to figure out the expectation for the assignment. After reading both texts, I developed my action research plan using the Tool 7.1 Action Planning Template. I plan to meet next week with my administrators and the counselor to review my plan. I look forward to reading your comments. 

The copy and paste format is a little different from Microsoft Word 2013.

Action Planning Template
Research Question: What effects do adult mentors have on elementary students? Goal: To evaluate the effectiveness of our adult mentoring program. To determine if adult mentors improve a student’s grades and/or emotional well-being.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Gather data from other schools with mentoring programs	§  D. Gerold	April 2013 - October 2013	§  Internet §  Articles, Journals, and/or Books §  Laptop	Collect data from other schools to determine the effectiveness of  mentoring programs
Interview Program Leader	§  D. Gerold	April 2013	§  Laptop	Determine how our campus was selected and the purpose of the mentor program
Create a survey for students, parents, teachers, and mentors	§  D. Gerold §  M. Quintero §  C. Hakanson	May 2013	§  Surveys (Survey Monkey) §  Names of involved parties (Skyward)	Analyze data from the surveys to determine the effects on students
Select a controlled group of students to survey (not involved in the program and with similar demographics to the students involved in the program).	§  D. Gerold §  M. Quintero §  C. Hakanson	May 2013 -October 2013	§  Surveys (Survey Monkey) §  Names of      students with similarities (Skyward)	Analyze data from the surveys to determine if the mentor program could benefit other students
Monitor students throughout the research to  determine any grade and/or emotional changes	§  D. Gerold §  M. Quintero §  C. Hakanson	April 2013 -October 2013	§  Laptop §  Skyward (grades)	Review data from Skyward to view grade changes and conduct informal discussions with all involved parties
Accumulate data and create a report to present to the church congregation	§  D. Gerold	October 2013	§  All relevant data (surveys, discussions, interviews, grades, etc.)	Completion of action research report and blog postings

Format based on Tool 7.1 from Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools

(Harris, Edmonson, and Combs, 2010)

Week 2 Learning

This week I enjoyed reading chapter 2 on identifying the nine areas to explore for conducting action research. I found the examples helpful as they were developed and implemented by real administrators. In this week's videos, I learned to research other campuses with similar needs and to examine areas of personal interest instead of something that will look good on paper. In addition, to Google topics of interest to avoid "re-inventing the wheel".

This week I met with my principal to discuss possible topics to research. After I presented my interests, I selected researching the effects of our new mentoring program. A local church selected our campus to mentor students with low self-esteem, family issues, or academic struggles. I plan on surveying and interviewing students, parents, teachers, and the mentors to gather information. I believe researching this topic is critical to determine the current struggles students are facing at home and at school.  Another importance is to determine if the program is helping our students.